Madame Dictionary

I’m retired from academia. That is, I no longer present research at conferences and I haven’t graced the front of a university classroom for a long time. Instead, I devote my hours to fulfilling book contracts.

No matter the particular application of my skills, lifelong , I’ve retained a love for words. In fact, in high school, I was taunted by my peers with the catcall “Madame Dictionary.”

What’s interesting is that fifty years ago, when I was an adolescent, there was no Internet. Writers were unable to click when seeking word families that were capable of capturing the exact nuance of the sentiments that they wished to express. Rather, from time to time, that is, only on occasion, folks who put pen to paper or who used typewriters edited their compositions with the aid of a clothbound thesaurus. Most people, most often,  though, forwent such an encumberment.

Admittedly, when I grew older, i.e., when I became a college co-ed, I attempt to write with such a book perched on my lap. As was common, I misunderstood how to make my writing fluid. Meaning, I erroneously believed that “offbeat” bested “regular.” Hence, I repeatedly failed to rely on my natural vocabulary and, instead, counted on my professors being impressed with odd verbiage.

In the following decade, when I became a professor, I encouraged my undergraduates to think mindfully about their word choice, I also emphasized that their diction needed, in the least, to appear natural. I lectured that links among nouns and verbs must be sufficiently graceful as to be imperceivable. Some of my students heeded my advice. Others did not. More exactly, some earned high marks in my courses. Others did not.

Tens of years later, when I began to conduct private writing workshops, I similarly directed my students to polish and then repolish their words. One or two dozen passes over a manuscript, I illustrated, ought to be their norm. Further, I taught that an exposition’s tone, per se, depended on its author’s attitude as well as on their chosen representations. To be more precise, I drilled, or at least endeavored to teach them, that stilted language often proves to be  more of a bramble patch to readers than informal language such as slang.

In that case, too, some learners abided my guidance; others did not. Newbies who listened to be instructions often were able to publish their work. Those who didn’t had inboxes full of rejections.

Rabbi Judah Mischelmore generally expands on this concept in . “Re’eh: Take a Look.” He writes that

There is a fine line between a healthy sense of self, gadlus ha’adam, confident self-esteem and arrogance. An honest reckoning of our human frailty and imperfections as well as out shortcomings and flaws ensures that we stand before Ribbono shel olam with appropriate humility and contrition. With an unchecked ego, we can easily get in our own way (Mischel, 39).

More accurately, it’s one thing to build word castles to try to pronounce oneself  “consummate.” It’s another thing, altogether, to approach writing, specifically, or life, more generally, with an attitude of entitlement. The former is the route of the unenlightened. The latter is the path of the despicable.

Recently, when I was assessing a manuscript submitted to a literary journal of which I’m on the masthead, I came to the realization that the submitter had used AI to create his “masterpiece.” A little cyberspace sleuthing revealed the author to be a teen keen on amassing as may awards and honors as possible. Sigh.

After asking the managing editor, my supervisor,  to run the submission through apps capable of checking for plagiarism and for AI constructed materials, I requested something more. Please, I urged, send the teen to me for tutoring, gratis. Someone clever enough to use AI as a workaround might also be someone clever enough to actually learn writing skills (I recalled my own youth when I considered papers riddles with “big words” culled from a thesaurus to be the epitome of ingenuity.)

Thoughtless people will continue to be impressed by unusual or multisyllabic words. Regardless of whether they understand what’s being written, such individuals will carry on assigning kudos to “writers” who seem to have integrated the better part of dictionaries in their scrawlings. In fact, fools will revere such persons even if the objects of their admiration are practicing some kind of prestidigitation and have no actual idea what they’re communicating.

Wiser sorts, inversely, will appreciate that gradations of meaning are possible through subtle shades of words. Likewise, they’ll appreciate that straightforward language almost always gets the job done. There’s little honor in being compared to phrase books. On the other hand, direct communication remains splendid!

Source:

Mischel, Rabbi Judah. “Re’eh: Take a Look.” Torah Tidbits. OU Israel. 31 Aug. 2024. 38-39.